Roberta Cleopatra Flack was born February 10, 1937 in Black Mountain, North Carolina to Laron and Irene Flack. Raised in Arlington, Virginia, her musical roots were formed in the Lomax African Methodist Eiscopal Zion Church. At the age of nine she began taking piano lessons and by the time she was a teenager she was awarded a full music scholarship at Howard University in Washington, DC. Over time, Roberta changed her major from piano to voice, and became an assistant conductor for the university choir. After graduating at the age of nineteen, she began graduate studies in music, but was forced into the working world, teaching music and English in Farmville, North Carolina after her father passed away. Returning to the nation's capitol, Roberta taught at junior high schools by day and gave piano lessons after hours. Nights and weekends would find her at local night clubs, accompanying other performers on the piano. Developing a keen interest in Blues, Folk and Pop music, she landed a gig playing and singing at a place called the 1520 Club. From there she moved on to Mr. Henry's Restaurant on Capitol Hill where she enthralled customers with her beautiful voice.

Jazz/Soul singer and pianist Les McCann caught Roberta's act one night and arranged an audition for her at Atlantic Records where she sang for producer Joel Dorn for three hours. After signing a recording contract, she recorded her debut album, "First Take" in February, 1969. When released in June of that year, the LP gained little attention and went mostly ignored. A second album, "Take Two" met with similar results, and it wasn't until Atlantic's Jerry Wexler suggested that she team with Donny Hathaway that things started to turn around. The album, "Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway" included the Carole King written "You've Got A Friend", which entered the Billboard Hot 100 on May 29, 1971, the same day a version by James Taylor also cracked the chart. Although Taylor's rendition went all the way to number one, Flack and Hathaway also did well with it, taking their record to #29 during a nine week stay in the Top 40. A second single from the duets album, a remake of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" became a #30 hit on the R&B chart, and peaked on the Hot 100 at #71. The follow-up, a cover of The Shirelles' 1961 chart topper "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", lifted from the LP "Quiet Fire", stalled at #84 in January, 1972. She didn't know it at the time, but Roberta's career was just about to change.

The previous year, Clint Eastwood had heard Roberta's 1969 recording of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" on his car radio while driving down the L.A. Freeway. He had phoned her and asked for approval to use it in his directorial debut film called Play Misty For Me. After rejecting Roberta's offer to re-record the track a bit faster, Eastwood bought the rights to include the tune in the movie's soundtrack for $2,000. The film hit theatres in November, 1971 to positive reviews, and Atlantic Records released "First Time" as a single, shortened by a minute, in February 1972. The record shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, where it stayed for six consecutive weeks that Spring. Staying in the Top 40 for fifteen weeks, the song also topped the Easy Listening Chart, hit #4 on the R&B chart and reached #14 in the U.K. The single went Gold for selling over a million and was awarded a Grammy for Record Of The Year in 1973, while the "First Take" LP also went to number one, selling nearly two million copies. Hot on the heels of "First Time", Atlantic Records released another cut from the "Robert Flack And Donny Hathaway" LP called "Where Is The Love". The record climbed to #5 on the Hot 100 during an eleven week stay in the Top 40. It also led the R&B chart and the Easy Listening chart for one week each, and went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals.

Next up was a tune that Roberta said she first heard on an in-flight tape recorder while flying from Los Angeles to New York. The song was called "Killing Me Softly With His Song" by Lori Lieberman. Flack worked on the song for three months, rearranging the structure and changing it to end with a major rather than minor chord. Topping the Billboard chart on February 24th, 1973 for a five week stay, the record would go on to win Grammy Awards in 1974 for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best Female Pop Vocal. With the Record Of The Year award, Roberta became the first artist in history to win the citation two consecutive years. The parent album, "Killing Me Softly" became her best selling disc, earning Double Platinum status. A second release from the LP, "Jesse" was a bit of a disappointment, stalling at #30 that Autumn. She rebounded nicely however with "Feel Like Makin' Love" in mid-1974. The song was written by Gene McDaniels, who had a Billboard number three hit of his own in 1961 with "A Hundred Pounds of Clay". "Feel Like Makin' Love" led the Hot 100 in August for one week, making Roberta the first female vocalist to top the chart in three consecutive years. It went on to receive three Grammy nominations for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.

The August, 1978 album, simply titled "Roberta Flack" was not as commercially successful as some of her previous work. It did however produce "If Ever I See You Again", which topped Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and reached #24 on the Hot 100. The song was also the featured track for a film of the same name, starring Joe Brooks and Shelley Hack. Roberta was later quoted as saying that "If Ever I See You Again" was a song that she couldn't stand, but later admitted, "I had a very clever lawyer who made a huge money deal for [my recording] that song."

Donny Hathaway's personal problems had driven a wedge between him and Roberta and the two did not reconcile for several years. Eventually the duo returned to Atlantic Records' studios to make another duets album. During one of the sessions, on January 13th, 1979, Hathaway began to act irrationally and could not continue to record. Just hours later, he was found dead on the sidewalk below the window of his 15th-floor room in New York's Essex House hotel. His death was later ruled a suicide. Roberta was said to be devastated by his loss, and the two tracks that were completed, "You Are My Heaven" and "Back Together Again" were included on her next album, "Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway".

A 1980 get-together with Peabo Bryson produced an album called "Live And More", from which two singles, "Make The World Stand Still" and "Love Is A Waiting Game" made an appearance on the Billboard R&B chart. After a nearly four year absence from the Hot 100, Roberta make a triumphant return in April, 1982 with the Burt Bacharach, Bruce Roberts, and Carole Bayer Sager composition, "Making Love", which topped out at #13. The song was the title track to a movie starring Kate Jackson and Harry Hamlin and was included in Flack's album, "I'm The One". A single of the same name managed to climb to #42 on the Hot 100 and #10 on the Adult Contemporary chart. Another pairing with Bryson in 1983, "Tonight I Celebrate My Love", did even better, coming in at #16 on the Hot 100, #5 on the R&B chart and #4 on the Adult Contemporary list. The record also marked their best showing in the U.K. where it rose to #2. Roberta's next two singles with Bryson, "You're Looking Like Love To Me" and "I Just Came Here To Dance" only made a small dent on the Adult Contemporary chart. Another song called "This Side Of Forever" was included in the Clint Eastwood movie Sudden Impact that same year.

In 1986, Roberta's recording of "Together Through The Years" was used for the NBC TV show Valerie, later renamed The Hogan Family. On November 1st, 1988 she released "Oasis", her first solo album of newly recorded songs since 1982's "I'm The One". Although the LP failed to make an impression with Pop audiences, the title track reached #1 on the Billboard R&B chart and a remix of "Uh-Uh Ooh-Ooh Look Out (Here It Comes)" topped the Dance chart in 1989. Roberta reached the Billboard Top 40 chart one last time when "Set The Night To Music" peaked at #6 in late 1991. The duet with Reggae vocalist Maxi Priest was an even bigger hit on the Adult Contemporary chart, reaching #2 in the U.S. and #1 in Canada.

Roberta was honored with a star on The Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 1999. That same year, she performed for President Nelson Mandela at a concert in South Africa. In 2010 she appeared at the 52nd Grammy Awards where she sang "Where Is The Love" with American singer-songwriter Maxwell (Gerald Maxwell Rivera). February, 2012 brought the album "Let It Be: Roberta Flack Sings the Beatles", her first recording in over eight years. The twelve song collection had a special meaning to Roberta as John Lennon and Yoko Ono lived across the hall from her at The Dakota apartment building in New York City.

When not appearing onstage, Roberta was an active member of the Artist Empowerment Coalition, an organization which advocates the rights of artists to control their creative properties. She was also a spokeswoman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and partnered with the Hyde Leadership Charter School for an after-hours music program called The Roberta Flack School Of Music, which provides free music education to underprivileged students.

On April 20th, 2018, an 81-year-old Roberta Flack suffered a stroke while performing at The Apollo Theatre and was forced to leave the stage. Her management later announced that she was "doing fine," but her Official web site says that she no longer tours. An announcement on her Facebook page dated November 9th, 2018, said that she had recently recorded a song called "Running", that was available on ITunes and Amazon.